Friday, April 1, 2011

Informal Stonehell Poll Results

To give everyone a deserved break from all the April Fool’s bullshit and the “A-Z Blogging Challenge” that is going to make everyone’s blog roll look like Alphabet Soup for the next month (and “Oh what a JOY that’s going to be,” says the man who has been there, done that, and wrote a book about it), I wanted to extend my gratitude to everyone who took the time to provide feedback yesterday.

As I mentioned, I had my own bias before I asked the question and I’m glad to see that the majority of people are of the same mind: Keep it Labyrinth Lord and leave out the AEC. That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing in my home game and I always meant to keep the published version as close to the basic rules as possible. I shall strive to continue in that vein and remain pure to my original intentions.

That being said, if I do happen to decide that Level Eight really, really, really needs a floating, multi-eyed, eyeball monster, I might cite the appropriate page number in the AEC rather than take up valuable page real-estate reinventing the wheel yet again. Such occurrences, if any, will be limited to the absolute minimum and only be done when I feel there is no better route to go than to use something form the AEC. But such measures will be of the last resort variety.

Thanks again, all. Looks like it’s time to put my mining helmet back on, pay off my kobold guides, and see what lays beyond the Vrilya check point on Level Five. I’ll send progress reports as they develop.

My players and I are all excited about our second Stonehell session coming up this Monday. I will be continuously blogging about the experience of running it from my own perspective as a new returnee to an old-school system on my site, but of course out of respect for you (and anyone else who will be interested in running/playing it in the future) I'll be doing so with an absolute minimum of spoiler content, focusing on gameplay issues and considerations instead.

veriword: Curaga--the best healing spell available to Final Blog XII characters.

Who's to Blame

Despite having never been a professional adventurer, Michael Curtis has nonetheless deciphered cryptic writings, handled ancient maps and texts, ridden both a camel and an elephant, fallen off a mountain, participated in a mystical rite, and discovered the resting places of lost treasures. He can be contacted at poleandrope @ gmaildotcom